So to preface/disclaim, I love the new zones. JL is a gorgeous zone with great music and reminds me strongly of Grizzly Hills from WotLK back in the day (still one of my favorites there), and JS has serious Diablo vibes, which I absolutely adore. The encounters are interesting, and at least the first of the antagonists was interesting. There’s a lot to like here.
That makes it worse, then, to say I am done with them after just a few hours. Story quests done, map complete, got my Falling Star, did the meta. Could always grind more mastery XP, but I’ve got the ones that mattered to me.
With the old “full” expacs, you had elite specs and hero points that pulled you back to those zones on alts, some- eg guano, frogs, shroom, chak- that were actually fun challenges to tackle. I’ve been back to HoT / PoF / EoD a dozen times and more over the years.
It just really seems a shame, then, to spend all of this time on awesome art and music and encounters for it to be rendered pointless so quickly. There will be a legendary back at some point in the cycle that will be interesting for a bit of poking like the living world legendaries, but even that’s just a 1-off.
At least in SotO there was the prospect of obsidian armor to give it some legs, but unless interior decorating is your thing, this one really just doesn’t have a shelf life. I finished up, looked around, and immediately went back to working on stuff elsewhere in the game.
I have bought that pack but haven’t started it yet, but the basics of what you are saying I agree, give me a full expansion pack. Make it worth my while and my money. Hopefully I enjoy it when I get there.
Would it have been better if they had waited to release all of Soto and Janthir into one? Would that be considered a “full expansion pack”?
Is there anything on the roadmap that seems interesting? I haven’t been paying attention.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Janthir_Wilds#Additional_releases
There’s a raid/convergence and a legendary spear releasing in November. Another map in Q1, and at some point (TBA) a legendary back, another raid/convergence, and another map. So maybe something to start working on in a few months (spear) and sometime another project (back), though that TBA seems like it’s getting close to the next expac release.
It really is a shame. If Arenanet was a bigger studio they could probably have two teams working on expansions at the same time so that we could get a new one every year while still allowing for two years of development.
The loss of new elite specs is by far my biggest disappointment, the lackluster metas and hit-or-miss instanced content also lowers the overall value proposition to me, personally.
